


Epistemology

by katsidhe



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Cage Trauma, Gen, Post-Episode: s13e23 Let the Good Times Roll, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Self-Harm
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-08
Updated: 2018-10-08
Packaged: 2019-07-28 01:49:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,314
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16231721
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/katsidhe/pseuds/katsidhe
Summary: Jack's not handling the events of 13.23 very well. Neither are Sam and Cas.





	1. Chapter 1

Jack finally finds _Les Hommes de Lettres: Outillage de L’Enchanteur_ , edition five, on a dim shelf far, far back in the bunker archives. It’s heavy and bound in faded blue leather, and when he yanks it out from where it’s wedged—behind a stone statuette carved in odd geometrical patterns—a plume of dust billows out to make him sneeze. When he was younger, he would have whooped with triumph, but now he just traces his fingers over the filigreed lettering and grins.

It hadn’t been easy to track down. It wasn’t referenced at all in Sam’s digital files, and the card catalogue entry directed him to a box full of tiny scrolls so ancient that they crumbled when he picked one up. He spent a long time combing through dusty stacks of loose vellum and fragile books with unlabeled spines before he found the first in the series, and then he’d had to find the other four, and check for more entries.

When Jack gets back upstairs, the scattered gears and springs of some intricate piece of golden clockwork are scattered across what’s unofficially become Sam’s table in the library. The other denizens of the bunker pass through, now and again, to reference books or artifacts, but an unspoken barrier chivvies them back out quickly and keeps them well away from Sam’s work.

Jack knows why: it’s because these people want Michael dead, and Sam wants to keep him alive long enough to get Dean back.

Jack’s helping Sam, as much as he can. He’s trying. Sam’s mostly keeping him sidelined. Sam tells him to read certain books, and distractedly asks him to fetch this item or that. Jack knows the reason for this, too: since he’s powerless, he’s a liability in a fight.

That, and he’s proven to be a poor judge of character.

On the worst night of Jack’s life, he’d betrayed Sam and stabbed himself. Then, Sam had bandaged Jack’s wound and put an arm around him, rubbing his shoulders even after Jack had stopped sniffling, all the way until Castiel arrived in the Impala.

The next day, Sam had barely looked at him. And the day after that, Sam wished Jack good morning when he came out into the kitchen, as if they hadn’t dragged the corpse of Jack’s father out the front doors of that church and set it ablaze with holy oil—as if Jack hadn’t seen Sam crumple to his knees by the fire.

Jack has figured out a lot of things, recently.

“I found it,” says Jack, grinning. Sam sent him on this errand nearly two hours ago. Jack would apologize for being so late, but he hates the way Sam’s face pinches in hurried reassurance whenever he says sorry.

“Thanks,” says Sam. He smiles at Jack and takes the book, but then his face falls. “Oh, 1821. Was there no sixth or seventh edition?”

Jack’s heart stutters like he’s missed a step on a staircase. His triumph sours. “This was the latest I saw,” he says lamely. The excuse is pathetic in the face of Sam’s disappointment.

“That’s okay,” says Sam, over-hasty, but now he’s frowning down at the fragile mess of metal components. “This is a later device, but there might still be a reference. Brainstorming or something.” He gingerly clears a space free of components, plonks down the book, and starts paging through it.

Jack watches quietly. The buoyant, temporary victory is ruined. His stomach still hurts—beneath his shirt, there’s an angry red scar where the blade nearly killed him. Where he nearly killed himself. Sam’s tinkering. Jack absently presses his knuckles into the mark. Pain is different without his grace. All sensation is, really.

A sudden clank; Sam’s dropped something heavy.

“Jack, what are you doing?” Sam is staring at him. The pile of clockwork gleams. His expression is hard to read.

Jack isn’t sure what he means, at first, tries to think what he might have done wrong—but then Sam’s standing up and he’s pulling Jack’s fingers away from his abdomen and cradling them gently between his own big hands. 

“What are you doing,” Sam repeats, and that horrible aching look Jack hates is back.

“I don’t know,” Jack mumbles. He jerks his hands away. He can’t meet Sam’s eyes, so he glances away. The shining bits of machinery look delicate and cruel in the soft yellow light.

“Does your stomach hurt?” asks Sam.

“Just a little,” says Jack.

“Jack,” Sam says. His brow is furrowed in a deep, earnest crease. “You know you shouldn’t punish yourself, right? ”

“I wasn’t,” says Jack.

More things Jack knows: he knows that he should be gone instead of Dean. He also knows, if he said that out loud, Sam would wrinkle his forehead and disagree strenuously, would give him a smile that looks stretched and plastic, would assure Jack that everyone cares about him and wants him around, and then Sam would go straight back to poring over centuries-old texts with red-rimmed eyes.

Picturing it hurts, so Jack keeps his thoughts to himself. Staying quiet is the least Jack can do. It’s certainly the least of what he deserves.

“Okay.” Sam sounds so careful. The worry is a permanent groove between his eyes; Jack hates it. “Do you want—”

Jack interrupts him. “I’m going to bed.”

Sam blinks. It’s not even six. But he doesn’t stop Jack when he marches out of the room.


	2. Chapter 2

Jack lies in bed for a long time. He doesn’t eat dinner because he doesn’t want to have to talk to Sam or Castiel. Sam comes by at about eight, calls his name and quietly knocks on his door, but Jack says nothing and pretends to be asleep.

Ever since the night in the church, things have been oddly foggy. Jack’s been drifting. He doesn’t know why he can’t feel any of it correctly anymore—not the fury, not the fear, not the devastation. Jack would almost think it’s the fault of his missing grace, except that he keenly remembers the terror and betrayal he felt when Lucifer hit him and almost killed Sam.

Eventually, he sleeps. He dreams, the way he always does: impressionistic blurs he can’t quite remember, watercolor images of eyes going red and skin going white, Sam and Jack and Sam, colored through with helpless rage and gleeful vengeance and blood that mixes with his blurry mind as it awakens, until he can’t be sure which feelings are really his.

When he wakes up, he’s ravenously hungry. His tongue is thick and furry and tastes awful. His head aches. Everything coalesces into the fuzzy, heavy sense that there are scales to be balanced.

He thinks about what Dean said about being strong. He thinks about the leftover pizza in the fridge.

When the red digits on the clock tick over to 1:00, Jack allows himself to get up. He creeps, noiseless on socked feet, until the sound of Sam’s voice stops him cold just outside the kitchen doorway.

“It feels like—remember when Chuck was dying?” Sam’s hushed, conspiratorial, the way the adults back at camp would talk about Jack when they thought he couldn’t hear.

Jack stays quiet and peeks in. He doesn’t feel up to facing Sam right now. Really, he should just go back to bed and get a big breakfast in the morning. Sam’s holding a glass with a few dregs of amber liquid: whiskey, something Jack isn’t allowed to have. The bottle sits on the table.

“I remember,” says Castiel gravely. He’s sitting with Sam, but he doesn't have a drink, not even beer. Jack doesn’t really enjoy the taste of beer, but ever since Lucifer took his grace, he does enjoy the way it makes him feel—a similar kind of floaty and disconnected, but in a way that’s loose and light instead of miserable and terrifying. Like maybe being powerless isn’t such a bad thing.

“Sorry, Cas,” says Sam, and his brow furrows. His eyes flick to Castiel, then down to his glass, tense and contrite. “I didn't mean it like that. I just, I don’t know how much you saw.”

“There’s nothing to forgive,” says Castiel. “I saw enough.” His coat is creased, the tie loose. He looks rumpled and exhausted.

Sam gestures, broadly, vaguely, in a way that sloshes his drink. “I just mean—how do you make sense of it, you know? He created everything, I mean, _everything_ , and then he was dying. Just like _that_ —” he snaps his fingers— “it was the end and the sun was going out. Game over. This is. I don’t know.”

“Lucifer wasn’t God,” says Castiel, solemn and firm as the toll of a church bell, and ice trickles down Jack’s spine.

Sam just shakes his head, his free hand flicking dismissively like he's batting away a fly. He puts his glass back on the table with a decisive _clink_. “No, obviously, I know that. And Chuck didn’t actually die, either, so it’s not a perfect metaphor. I just meant—you asked. It’s a little like that.”

There’s a long silence. Castiel is staring at Sam. His eyes look wet. Heavy shame pins Jack in place: he shouldn't be here—whatever this is, he shouldn't be witnessing it, but he can't move.

Sam rubs the back of his neck, smiles twisted and sheepish, and ducks away. His hair falls over his face. Jack holds his breath.

Finally, Castiel says, low and strangled, “He’s gone. Dead. I promise that.”

Sam’s voice drops to match, impossibly soft. “I know,” he says. He’s gone hoarse, in the pause. “He burned. It’s the epilogue. But I think. I think I see him.”

Castiel jerks forward. He’s concerned. “Hallucinations?”

Sam snorts. “No, no, nothing like that. Did I ever tell you, right after Jess died, I used to see her?”

“No,” says Castiel. He’s frowning with worry, the same intense expression he sometimes uses with Jack. “See her how?”

Sam shifts in his chair, stiffening in the way he always does when Jack presses him too hard, and Jack knows in the next second he's going to flash an apologetic smile and change the subject.

But instead—because Sam doesn't know Jack is here, because Sam trusts Castiel—he takes an uneven breath and keeps going. “She looked how he looked when I first met him. We’d be driving, and something would catch in the corner of my eye. It wasn’t often. And only for a few months. I’d almost forgotten about it, until now.”

Castiel murmurs, “It’s okay, Sam.”

Sam shakes his head. “I _see_ him,” he says, barely a whisper.

Something shudders and cracks. Sam leans forward over the table and braces his knuckles against his forehead, hunching down over his elbows. He’s silent.

Jack’s abruptly close to tears. He closes his stinging eyes, feels the pressure in his sinuses, listens to his own heartbeats drag themselves deafening through the stillness.

Then, Sam’s shaky inhale, and the ragged exhale of hideous confession: “A bright dead angel, in white, standing on every corner.”


	3. Chapter 3

In the morning, Jack’s made a decision. He feels nauseous. He skips breakfast and goes straight to the library.

Sam glances up when he comes in. The clockwork is gone. Maybe it’s a lost cause without the right edition of that book. “Jack! Are you feeling better?”

“Why won’t you talk to me?” asks Jack, without preamble.

Now Sam’s head tilts up fully from the sheaf of papers he’s been leafing through, eyes wide and taken aback. “Of course I’ll talk to you, Jack. What do you want to talk about?”

“I want to talk about Lucifer,” says Jack. The forbidden name thrills rebellious in his gut and juts his chin up—the thing he knows he isn’t supposed to ask Sam about.

For a split second, Sam’s face changes. It slackens and goes blank, before he yanks his sympathetic expression back down over whatever’s beneath, like blinds over a window. But Jack saw. He’s always seen, if he thinks about it.

“What about him,” Sam asks, kindly.

“I wanted him to like me,” says Jack. It’s a challenge. He’s not sure why. He just wants to see something, anything, break Sam’s careful, rock-steady empathy. Sam’s acting like nothing’s wrong; or worse, like plenty is wrong, but that’s how it’s meant to be. Like Jack should _shut up_ because this is the way of things. 

Sam’s brow creases in a faint frown, as if Jack’s told him a mildly puzzling riddle. He doesn’t say anything.

“Because he was my father,” Jack continues.

“It makes sense,” says Sam slowly. “I don’t blame you, if that’s what you’re asking.”

Jack swallows hard. “That’s not what I’m asking,” he says. “Why didn’t you warn me about him?”

Sam looks at Jack levelly, with gentle, deliberate assessment. The strange but certain sense of being judged and found lacking settles in Jack’s chest, a hard curdled lump. “It wasn’t fair to keep you in the dark,” Sam says. Sidesteps. “That was my fault. I’d understand if you’re angry.”

Jack looks at Sam’s earnest eyes and thinks, very clearly, about the things he could say. _You don’t trust me. You’re afraid of me. I told you I love you. You told Lucifer I was family._

“Lucifer hurt you,” says Jack, instead. It isn’t a question, because he knows the answer, but he grits his teeth anyway to brace for the evasion he knows is coming. Sam could still act like Jack’s been imagining it, all of it. Maybe Jack just dreamed the conversation he overheard last night, but there are so many things he _knows_ he didn’t dream—

“Yeah,” says Sam, without blinking.

Jack’s brain stutters over the easy acknowledgement. In his mind, he’d gotten a corkboard. He’d pinned up pictures and scenes and connected them with thumbtacks and colored string, like in X-Files.

“He did,” says Sam.

“You didn’t tell me,” Jack says dumbly, prepared evidence forgotten.

“And I’m sorry about that,” says Sam, not missing a beat. His eyes are soft and warm and sincere, as if this is casual dinner conversation. No earth-shattering revelations after a week of silence; Jack’s just sharing some mild anecdote about dropping a carton of eggs.

As if Sam’s said a single _word_ about it since that night.

“You’re… sorry,” says Jack carefully, and something stirs in his chest: stirs, rises, and bursts intoflames. For the first time since the moment he nearly killed Michael, Jack feels something other than miserable or muffled. He feels _furious_.

The fire comes out of him like an explosion; he brings both fists down on the table, hard enough to bruise his human flesh. “You’re _sorry_? I _led_ him here!” Jack yells.

Sam’s eyes go wide. He’s jolted back, half-pushed out from the table and holding out a placating hand, babbling, “I know I should have told you, I know, but—“

“He nearly killed you! Dean’s GONE!” Jack shouts. He sniffs back the traitorous sting of tears. “Just tell me why!”

Sam’s mouth twists up in a grimace. “Jack,” he says calmly, grappling to regaining composure, “Jack, you’re a year old—”

“So _what_ ,” Jack hisses. “I’m not naive! I’ve fought in a war! I’ve watched my friends scream and die. I’ve killed people, remember?”

Sam shakes his head, knuckles white on the table. “That’s not what I meant. I mean—this was your _father_ , Jack, that’s—it’s not fair to put that on you.”

“You thought I could be like him.”

Sam scoffs. “You’re not like him.”

Jack knows Sam is lying. The night he met Sam, Jack had asked, “Father?” and Sam had recoiled. Sam had recognized something in him, Lucifer’s lingering grace, a filmy residue lining his veins.

Jack growls, “Then tell me. Tell me what he did.”

Sam glances back down at his papers. Reports, notes? Jack doesn’t know. It’s something to fight Michael, because it’s always something to fight Michael. Then Sam’s lips tighten, and he pushes his chin up to meet Jack’s eyes in a crisp, deliberate movement. “Jack, you’re right, I owe you an explanation. I’ll—I can tell you everything, if you want to hear.”

He pauses. Jack stares at him and waits.

Sam’s gaze flicks down and away again. On the stack of papers, his fingers are knotted together, tense and pale. His mouth opens, then closes; he wets his lips and takes a breath.

Jack imagines making golden cracks spiderweb their way across Sam’s face and into his eyes, the way he did with Lucifer—yanking out the truth, reaching down Sam’s throat and dragging secrets from his unwilling tongue.

The bottom drops out of Jack’s anger; a cold rush of horrified shame floods in.

“Wait,” he rasps, “wait. I’m sorry, you don’t have to.”

“It’s okay,” says Sam. His expression is pinched and kind. “I don’t mind.”

“I don’t want to hear right now,” Jack mumbles. He doesn’t need the details. It’s nauseatingly clear, what Lucifer is. It’s also clear what Jack is: he’s the last piece of Lucifer. What he almost did to Sam—would have done, if he’d still had his powers...

The fractured relief on Sam’s face is badly hidden. He doesn’t say anything, just nods and slumps back into his chair. Rubs his hands over his deep-shadowed eyes and unshaven chin.

“You were so afraid of me,” says Jack.

“It wasn’t your fault,” says Sam. He kneads at his temples, stretching the skin blue-white at the edges of his still-closed eyes. “I'm sorry I didn’t do better by you.”

Jack wishes Sam would stop apologizing. It's Jack who's sorry. It's Jack who betrayed them all. He’s gone from feeling nothing to feeling everything at once, in a jumble of horrific confusion.

“I’m the one who deserves to be punished,” murmurs Jack, tasting the truth and knowing Sam can hear it too.

Sam sits upright. “No, Jack—”

Jack wonders if the entire week was simply leading to this blank confession that Sam already knows: “I’m the one who should be gone.”

“No,” says Sam, standing and finally showing an ounce of anger, “no, it’s Michael’s fault, and Lucifer’s. Not yours.”

“It’s been a week,” whispers Jack. “Why are you acting like I didn’t betray you?”

Sam’s shaking his head. “You didn’t,” he says, “please believe me.” He pulls Jack’s hands into his own. Jack’d been pressing on his stomach again. He hadn’t even noticed.

This time, Jack doesn’t pull away. He swallows past the lump in his throat.

Sam’s hands tighten around his. “Jack. Lucifer’s fooled me too,” he says firmly.

It’s an offer for an answer, but Jack finds he can’t bear to ask the question.

Sam squeezes his hands. “It’s not your fault.”

Jack can’t speak. He nods.

Sam’s grip flutters, then releases. Jack lets out a breath and nearly stumbles, as if the solid, warm grasp was the only thing tying him down to earth.

Sam says, “So, uh. Do you want to help me with this?” He gestures at the books on his table, tentative, like Jack might storm out again.

“Yeah.” Jack scrubs a hand over his eyes.

“ _Outillage de L’Enchanteur_ ,” Sam says, “turns out there was an incredibly helpful chapter on how the Men of Letters manufactured their prototype banishment devices, back in the day.”

“Oh,” says Jack.

“I think if we combine these—” and Sam stacks more manuscripts— “and reference here—” and then Sam’s explaining a plan, outlining how he wants to reverse engineer some kind of magical invention.

It’s more than Sam’s spoken to him all week. Jack drinks it in, even if it’s not quite what he wanted.

Sam pauses, thumb in the pages of the book Jack found. “You know I don’t mind you asking me about stuff, even if it’s hard, right?”

He smiles. It doesn’t go to his eyes.

“I know,” says Jack.


End file.
